Page 37 of On My Side
“What am I doing?” she asks from the backseat, voice saccharine and one-hundred percent untrustworthy.
I pause my typing for a moment. “I’m not surewhatyou’re doing, but I’m certain ofwhyyou’re doing it. You’re not Lindsay Lohan, and Mr. Q isn’t your dad, weirdo. Why are youParent-Trappingus?”
I hear Piper unbuckle her seatbelt and feel her breath on my ear as she leans forward. “Mr. Q? Don’t you mean Re-en?” She sing-songs his name, dragging it out so it has several syllables.
“You’re the worst,” I grumble, playfully thwacking at the hand she planted on my shoulder. She moves it quickly enough that I end up hitting myself instead.
“When should I start calling him ‘Dad’?” she wonders aloud.
“Whenever he adopts you, ‘cuz I’m done with you,” I fire back.
She cackles.
I fight back a smile, and fail. This damn kid.
“Piper, where is this coming from?” I ask gently, unbuckling my seatbelt and turning in my seat to face her
“You seem happy when you’re together—I didn’t know you could smile this big, Mama.” Damn her, she knows calling me ‘Mama’ is a foolproof way to make me tear up. “And you both look at each other like… like Luke looks at Lorelai the whole damn series.”
“Real life doesn’t work like a TV show,” I say quietly, reaching back and brushing a rogue strand of hair out of her face. “You don’t just… find your person at a diner and become happy.”
“You’re right. Sometimes you find them teaching your daughter piano.”
I sigh. “Piper…”
“Why don’t you want to be happy, Mama?”
“I am happy, birdie. I’m always happy with you.”
“You literally have depression.”
“And you think dating your piano teacher will cure me?” I ask, voice laced with confusion.
She sighs heavily. “No. You’re happy enough, but you deserve to smile all the time the way you do when he makes a crappy joke. You deserve to be looked at like you hung the moon. The way he ran to get his sweater for you? You’re the one who always runs to get your sweater to give to me.”
“Birdie,” I reach for her hand and she takes mine with surprising speed. “I love you. So much. And I’m grateful you want me to be happy and be treated well. But Ren and I don’t have any sort of relationship beyond him being your piano teacher. But Eva wants me to make friends, and I could see Ren being one. But that’s it, nothing more.”
“All I’m saying is I wouldn’t be mad if you became more,” she says quietly, squeezing my hand. “I think you’retryingto set boundaries with me as your kid, and failing terribly, and that’s cool. I’ll respect that. But I don’t know. You’re allowed to be more than my mom. You’re allowed to be Audrey and to findhappiness that isn’t me. You’re my favorite person in the world, you know? I want you to be more than happy.”
I blink back the threatening tears flooding my eyes. “What’s more than happy?”
She squeezes my hand again. “You’ll know it when you see it.”
The door to Ren’s apartment building opens in my peripheral vision, and he comes out holding a cat carrier, a backpack strapped to his back. “If you say so, birdie.”
She doesn’t respond, just lets out a high pitched squeal as she pushes the door open and tumbles out. “Is that your cat?” Piper asks Ren excitedly.
“Yep,” Ren says, holding the carrier so Piper can peek in, similar to a proud father holding his baby’s car seat up. My stomach twists as that image forces itself into my brain. Ren with a baby—hisbaby—with a beautiful partner next to him, reaping the rewards of the hot dad forearms he’ll inevitably have.
I hate this hypothetical human.
“What’s her name?” Piper asks, pulling me out of my maladaptive daydream.
“Princess Leia, but I only add the Princess when she’s gnawing on my snake plant.” I try to stifle my giggle behind my hand. Of course this dweeb named his cat after Carrie Fisher’s character inStar Wars.
“Mom does that too, adds the ‘Elise’ when I’m in trouble,” Piper informs him.
He grins. “When I’m in trouble, Istillget the ‘Lorenzo Christopher’ treatment. Hate to tell you it never goes away.”
